Zippers represent one of the most common systems for providing selectable closure to items such as bags, clothing, tents, and countless other protective or enclosing devices. Zipper devices are often seen as advantageous to other common fastening means such as laces, buttons, and snaps due to their ease of manipulation, quickness of use, and their ability to provide closure across a large area. Furthermore, zippers tend to be fairly durable of construction and often outlast the life of a garment or the like, unlike buttons and laces which are prone to failure.
One (1) problem associate with zippers is that they do not provide the same level of security as buttons and the like. Zippers are particularly prone to coming inadvertently undone during use. This is especially a problem with vertically oriented zippers where gravity itself can be enough to cause the pull tab to fall downward and undo the zipper. This can lead to undesirable situations such as the accidental opening of a zipper doorway enclosure such as on a tent, accidental opening of a bag or other carrying device which results in spillage of the contents, and the particularly common and embarrassing situation of accidental opening of a front zipper portion such as commonly found on pants and shorts.
Various attempts have been made to provide zipper pull tab retainers. Examples of these attempts can be seen by reference to several U.S. Pat. No. 3,579,749, issued in the name of Holman, describes a zipper safety fastener which includes a toggling interlocking fastener integral to the zipper pull tab assembly for providing selective motion prevention functions to the zipper.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,928,363, issued in the name of Easton, describes a zipper securing ring which comprises a pull tab with a large circular aperture designed to fit over a common top button portion of pants or the like. The Easton device allows a user to hang the zipper over the button prior to securing the button in order to prevent accidental downward motioning of the zipper pull tab.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,200,901, issued in the name of Pitts et al., describes a zipper securing device including multiple embodiments of two-part zipper and elastic band assemblies which engage each other to inhibit accidental movement of the zipper pull.
While these devices fulfill their respective, particular objectives, each of these references suffer from one (1) or more of the aforementioned disadvantages. Many such devices are bulky or otherwise unpleasing in shape and appearance as compared to a conventional zipper pull tab. Furthermore, many such devices make motioning of the zipper inconvenient as compared to a conventional zipper assembly. In addition, many such devices are not retrofittable to an existing zipper assembly and thus cannot be utilized with existing clothing or other items with zippers. Accordingly, there exists a need for a zipper pull tab retention device without the disadvantages as described above. The development of the present invention substantially departs from the conventional solutions and in doing so fulfills this need.